First, what I've been told today by the vet; overall, everything is ok, no apparent sign of illness on the blood work, the only thing is, I have to watch what I give her (I already knew I had to transition her to a better diet); I will have to give her more proteins and will have to be careful with fattier foods (aka ease up on nuts and sunflower seeds (which aren't hard to do)). She is a total doll though, I can already do pretty much everything I want with her.

I figured I’d go into a more expletive post about each day spent with Pixel (aka Pixie, which is the name I want to try out for now).

The first day started with my boyfriend picking her up from her previous home and then picking me up from work so we could bring her to the vet for our 4 o’clock appointment. Talk about putting all possible trauma in one day…First, having a stranger you’ve only met once come to get you while a member of the household who doesn’t normally deal with you helps him put you in a carrier. How nice, right? Apparently she was very sweet and stepped up when my boyfriend asked her too..it’s when she realized he tried putting her in a carrier that things got a bit more complicated. It didn’t help that each time another bird in the room would fly she would try to take off as well. In the end, he did manage to get her in the carrier by letting her calm down and by having his hand slightly over her back to guide her in the carrier. I find it awesome she let him put his hand there, I wouldn’t dream doing that with Zuri or Petey..On the drive to get me from work, she apparently was rather quiet, scratching the carrier door in the same fashion as Joey (might be sibling thing) but not nearly as much as Joey would and whistling softly. While they waited for me in front of my building, the boy managed to give her a head and tummy scratch.

Once at the vet, while waiting in the waiting room she started making soft sounds which kinda sounded like “Hello”. Very cute. I kept her in the carrier once we got in the examination room, wanting the vet to be the “bad guy” taking her out to be poked and prodded. Trauma #2. All and all, she did pretty well and although the vet did tell me that I was not getting a bird in pristine condition, at least I knew I was getting a sweet bird and she was worth the effort to bring her health right back up, as it’s most likely nothing we can not fix.

Trauma #3 – coming back “home” with said strangers which picked you up from your previous home, brought you to a person which examined you in every fashion and now you are ending up in a completely new environment. She’s being quarantined in our bedroom, I set up my larger cage (Hagen Manor, look it up if you want the exact dimensions) so that she would have extra space since she would most likely be spending a bit more time in her cage. The first hour or so she spent in the top right corner, hanging from the cage bars. It was a sad sight, given all the extra space she had with nice perches. My boyfriend added that this is how she was perching when he first entered the room to get her and based on our previous visit, I think I remembered something similar. However, after that first hour was up, she had moved down to food bowl (just perching on the rim) and then to the rope perch and grapevine perch I provided. She moved around the cage, exploring. At one point I spent a bit more time in the room with her (while my other birds were having dinner) and opened the door to the cage. She remained in and I didn’t force her to come out. Once my other birds went in for the night, I went back to the bedroom and opened the door once again – after about 20 minutes, she came out on her own after having a nice drink of water. Since I haven’t really seen her eat and there wasn’t much evidence of her eating at the bottom of the cage (other than the hot peppers which are part of the pellet mix I gave her) I gave her a bit of millet while she was on top of the cage and she ate a bit of it. She had seemed interested in the fresh food I provided earlier (the same stuff I give my other birds) but she didn’t seem to know what to do with it – I’m sure with time she’ll come around to eating it (it has worked with my other birds who didn’t know what to do with fresh food when I got them).

Anyways, at one point she actually gestured she wanted to come over and see me but didn’t quite know how to proceed – I went to pick her up and she stepped up right away.

There was a lot more progress than I had expected in a short amount of hours – specially if you consider how the afternoon started. However, I wanted the vet visit out of the way to begin with so now it should all be good stuff to come, once she’s truly comfortable.

(No pictures yet as I didn't take any that day..I don't think she needed to a have a huge camera shoved in her face after all she went through in one day.. )

She seems a bit more shy today. She came out of her cage a few times but spent most of it inside (I left the door open quite a bit to let her in/out as she pleased).

However, she did eat a bit more of the pellets than she did yesterday. She also tried the piece of toast I give all my birds in the morning as well as the piece of peach which was the breakfast fruit of the day. I also saw her drink quite a bit and her droppings are a more normal colour, compared to the bright orange they were yesterday (a result of the pellets she previously ate).I’m letting her go at her past though. I plan to read to her tonight once the other birds are in for the night (I spend an extra half hour – hour with her once the others are in). I want her to slowly get used to my presence and to come and see me when she feels like it. This is a lot of new stuff and there is no point to rush things.

Congratulations on your new addition Natacha! She looks like a real sweetheart! She does look a little rough around the edges, but if anyone can turn things around I'm sure you can. She's very lucky to have you guys.

I was thinking about you on the weekend because I recalled you had the vet appointment on Friday. I'm glad to hear that nothing serious is wrong.

I can see a resemblence to Lucy in the picture where she is preening her back. I'll have to take a closer look at the other picture tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to further updates. After you told me about that Meyer's at the rescue here in Toronto, I'm seriously considering a rescue now in the fall, so I'm curious to see how it goes with Pixie.

1) Is Pixie flighted? (from the pics it looks like no?)2) The bird didn't come with a cage?3) How did you get Pixie back into cage after letting out if not tamed?4) When are you going to update your sig and avatar?

Not fully at this point, no. She had a grown feather with no support on one side and two on the other. My vet felt, since it looks like a molt is imminent (and that new feathers should come in), that it was best to cut the one that had no support (before it broke - she's seen this happen before on a number of birds) and then the two on the other side so that everything was even. She didn't cut them particularly short, just at the same level as the others were. Actually, my vet wasn't really impressed with the clipping job. Pixie can actually still fly upwards a bit.

I will let them grow in though.

2) The bird didn't come with a cage?

No she didn't. As I've pointed out (I think I have anyways), the former owner had all his bird living in what used to be a living room, with no cages. In any case, I already had a cage set up for her in my birdroom and have an extra cage in my bedroom for now.

3) How did you get Pixie back into cage after letting out if not tamed?

It's not that she's not tame. Actually, she is rather good with stepping up.She stepped up nicely for my boyfriend, a man she's only seen once before he got her, and it's not until he got her close to the carrier that she flew away. The other birds flying all over the place made putting her in the carrier a bit harder, but he managed by having her step up again and putting his other hand gently over her back.

4) When are you going to update your sig and avatar?

I started updating things...the avatar won't be for a while, as she is still separated from the others.

I was still looking for a favorite food which could act as some type of bribery item to get Pixie to come closer to us. I think I found it in the form of an almond. When presented to her, her eyes pinned in what looked like thrilled expectations, there was no question that this was indeed an edible item. She took it with no hesitation and destroyed it in mere seconds. For the second one, I tried to have her actually move towards me (whereas the first one was offered right to her) and she was a bit more reluctant to get it, but ultimately decided that it was well worth the effort.

I forgot to mention that this happened out of her cage. Another big positive which happened today was that she willingly stepped up on my finger from inside her cage without any hesitation. Up until today she wanted nothing to do with it, choosing to come out by her own means when she truly felt like it.

Also, she has a few toys to her disposition in the cage, mostly things to destroy but made of different materials. I also have a bucket of foot toys and I took one out, a shreaddable item, for her to play with. She seemed quite interested, although the actual play time was rather brief. I do have hope that she has some idea on how to play with things so getting her to actively play with more toys shouldn’t be too difficult.

Finally, once the other birds went in for the night and I devoted an hour or so to her. Since she was still somewhat shy, I went to my usual post when spending time around her which is on my bed, reading. The boy came and joined me and read as well. During that last half hour, she started making cooing noises, all rather cute. She came closer to us, as she’s been doing for a bit, but each time we move to get closer, she moves away. You see that she wants to be close but doesn’t quite know how close and how to achieve this yet. Well, during the last 15 minutes of her time out, she started turning her head and scratching it on the edge of the cage. I couldn’t help it anymore, I got up to scratch her head. She went up the ladder of the playtop portion of her cage, but still presented her head to me so for 15 minutes I stood there scratching her head and was she ever so sweet about it. Then it was time to go in and once I put her on a perch, I went to get a final almond to give her and she stepped right back up (ignored the almond) and did the head gesture wanting to feed me.

I guess she’s finally starting to settle in.

All in all, a good day of progress.

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Pictures taken on Day 3

You can see her belly not being fully top shape here

With some millet (which I used on day 1 to try to bribe her to come a bit closer...)

She said peak-a-boo! I was playing with her (or mimicking her head mouvments) and that got her all excited and she let out that gem in the sweetest possible vioce (yes, I’ll admit I’m smitten). I believe she also said “Stewie”, which I’ll try to convert to “Sweetie”.

She’s no longer hesitating to come and see me. She’ll readily come off the cage onto my finger. I also had her on my shoulder in the evening which meant I had to thoroughly cleam myself before going to see the other birds.

I had also written to the breeder yesterday asking if she could give me the hatchdate based on the band information (remember, same breeder as Joey and Zuri). She got back to me this morning (definitively faster than when I tried to figure out Zuri’s hatchdate) and Pixie was hatched on September 26th, 2004, so she’s not quite 6 years old yet.

I am very happy with the way she has progressed in just three complete days (not going to count Friday here). She actually let me put her on her back in my hand, without trying to grab any fingers. I am still unable to do this with Zuri and it took me quite a bit to get to do it with Joey (and even there, I don’t try it always as he’s not always willing to cooperate).

Just keeping my fingers crossed that the blood test results come back tomorrow with no major problems.

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Pictures from day 4

Grooming - you can see that her eyes are definitively not an has vibrant orange-red as her brother (who as very striking eyes)

Just sitting pretty

Last edited by Natacha on Thu Jun 17, 2010 8:53 am, edited 1 time in total.